Many articles, such as soft drinks, are packaged in bottles or other forms of containers and sold to the public in carriers accommodating the plurality of such containers. Accordingly, a wide variety of carriers have been developed for carrying a plurality of articles. Most such carriers are designed to be discarded after one use. However, for reuseable containers, such as returnable bottles, it is convenient to have a carrier which is also reuseable.
Particularly, with reuseable carriers and even with disposable carriers, there is frequently a storage and shipping problem in that bottlers must be shipped a supply a carriers. Shipment costs may be high, and bottlers must maintain an inventory of carriers for use, leading to storage costs.
In addition, the carrier must be relatively cheap and relatively durable. Preferably, it should collapse to allow for ease of shipment and storage. It must be designed so that containers, such as bottles, can be loaded onto the carrier by the use of mass production bottling equipment. In addition, it should be possible to wash the carrier after each use and finally, it would be preferable if material could be printed on the carrier for advertising purposes.
A number of reuseable carriers have been developed to satisfy these criteria. One such carrier commonly used and manufactured by Scepter Manufacturing Company comprises a stiff plastic box open at the top and divided into a series of container receiving compartments. A handle is connected to the open end of the box for carrying it. If the whole box is relatively rigid and forms a number of relatively rigid compartments, the box can be filled by the use of mass production machinery. The box can be imprinted after manufacture and is sufficiently durable to be re-used several times. However, as the carrier is made out of heavy plastic, it is not collapsible and is therefore very bulky and awkward to store when not in use and expensive to ship to a bottling plant. Further, such carriers are relatively expensive to manufacture because they must be manufactured in a central molding plant and require a considerable amount of plastic.
It would, therefore, be desirable to have a carrier which was collapsible, used a minimum amount of plastic and yet still provided for top end loading by a bottle loading machine and which was sufficiently durable to carry heavy loads generated by six or more relatively full soda pop bottles. In addition, it would be useful if the carrier was fully enclosed allowing for an outer surface to protect the bottle and an area to imprint trade marks or trade names.
A number of cardboard carriers are collapsible and are relatively cheap to manufacture. Some are hinged at the corners to allow to cardboard areas to collapse. The carrier is assembled and forms a permanent structure when one part of it, such as the bottom is glued.
Another type of cardboard carrier collapses sideways with one side folding in and the opposite side and bottom folding out to create a substantially flat carrier when not in use for shipping and storage. Cardboard, however, is not very sturdy for multiple uses. Also, bottling plants, by their nature are wet, and water weakens cardboard. In addition, such carriers are normally shipped and stored in plastic cases which need to be washed. This means that cardboard carriers must be removed before, and reinserted into the plastic cases after each washing.
The cheapest form of collapsible container is a plastic bag. However, such a container provides no protection between bottles inserted into it and in addition cannot be filled by mechanized bottling machinery. In addition, because the weight distribution in an ordinary plastic bag is uneven, such bags are subject to breakage from localized unevenly distributed stress.
Consequently, a need exists for an improved reuseable, collapsible, plastic carrier for carrying a plurality of articles which will be dependable, relatively inexpensive to manufacture and to use, will provide a surface for imprinting on the carrier, will be relatively easy to, store and which can be loaded by mechanized bottling equipment.